His Cowboy Heart

by Jennifer Ryan

  He grabbed hold of the worktable and tried to move it from the wall, but with its drawers filled with tools, spare parts, and junk from years gone by, he barely moved it an inch at a time. The effort it took sapped his energy and made him cough harder through the thickening smoke. The heat from the fire licking across the walls and up to the ceiling made him sweat.

  “Jamie!” The bellow only made him cough harder.

  She was too far away in the stables to hear him, so it wouldn’t do him any good to scream his head off, but reason quickly escaped his mind as overwhelming fear pounded through his veins. With three walls engulfed and the fire closing in on him, he kept working at moving the table, trying not to think of the blistering heat baking him alive.

  “Ford! Ford! Are you in there?”

  “Yes,” he gasped, though his voice came out rough from all the smoke. He dropped to his knees, trying to get some air by a crack between the boards. “Jamie,” he called weakly.

  “I’m here.” She slammed something into the board a foot away from him. “Watch out.”

  The sharp edge of an axe cut through the wood, splitting it. She yanked it out and swung it back through the cut she’d already made.

  The flames raced toward the opening Jamie was making with quick, efficient hacks at the wood. She hooked the axe around a board and yanked once, then twice, and pried the board off. Smoke billowed out the opening, cutting off the bright light. Jamie wacked another board, then pulled it free. He could barely contain the urge to leap toward her, but he couldn’t act on that impulse as his vision blurred and the smoke filled his lungs until he could barely take a breath. The darkness surrounding him crowded into his vision.

  Just when he thought he’d pass out and die, Jamie grabbed his arm and pulled. He used the last bit of energy he had to lean toward her and get his feet under him enough to push his lagging body toward her.

  A sickening crack sounded behind him a split second before he dove through the hole Jamie had made in the wall and the other side of the building collapsed in a blast of heat and flames. Jamie pulled his arm harder. He stumbled forward and fell onto the dirt and grass, gasping for breath. Jamie fell beside him and rolled him over and over until he ended up on his back once again.

  “What the hell?” His head spun.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Why are you rolling me around like that?”

  “To make sure all the sparks went out.” She patted his jeans in a few smoking places.

  It hit him all at once. She’d saved him. He’d nearly burned to death. If that wall of fire had fallen on him, he’d be dead. He stared with incomprehension at the ten-foot-tall flames. It seemed so unreal.

  Jamie cupped his face and leaned in close. “Ford. Are you okay?”

  He coughed a few more times, his lungs aching from the exertion. Instead of trying to talk when his throat still felt like it was on fire, he grabbed her to him and hugged her close as the fire consumed the rest of the building.

  “Ford, you’re scaring me.” Panic filled those words.

  “I’m fine. You saved me.”

  “I couldn’t get to the door. The flames were too hot. The fire . . . I almost lost it . . . The fire . . . You were in there.” She stumbled over her words and thoughts. Her body trembled against his, or maybe that was him, because that near death experience had taken ten years off his life.

  “What the hell happened?”

  He wished he knew. “A shovel fell against the door and locked me in. I hit the lights and the whole place went up.”

  “What shovel?”

  “Didn’t you see it against the door?”

  “No. I grabbed the axe you left out and ran for the other side of the building. I guess I missed it.”

  If she grabbed the axe from where the shovel had been beside the door, how did she miss seeing it? He’d think about it later. Right now, he was happy to be alive and to have Jamie in his arms. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m never going to sleep again. But I got you out.” Jamie spread her hands over his chest and moved them over him, assuring herself that he was really okay.

  Ford wrapped Jamie in his arms and held her close. He couldn’t imagine what nightmares that fire brought back to her. Feeling the scars on her back through her shirt, he could only imagine the pain and fear she’d suffered. He got a small taste of it being trapped in that room. He got off lucky with a few minor stinging burns on his bare arms and where the sparks had burned through his jeans before Jamie patted them out. In her case, she’d barely escaped with her life.

  He held her tighter until he could breathe without imagining her on fire or him dying in that shed.

  Sirens sounded in the distance.

  “You called the fire department?”

  “I’m just glad the dispatcher understood me. I called during my run up here from the stables.”

  “Did you hear me call for you?” He didn’t think so.

  She shook her head. “I felt like something was wrong. I’d already begun to investigate when I smelled the smoke, then saw the flames.” The distress came back into her eyes.

  Ford sat up with her and held her close. “I’m sorry I scared you.”

  “Enough, Ford. Hire someone. Ten people. Fix this place and make it safe. What if you’d been here alone, or I hadn’t come out of the stables and given in to my . . .” Tears choked off her words.

  “I’m so glad you listened to your instincts, Firefly. They saved my life.”

  “I am, too, even though most of the time I’m chasing ghosts.”

  “I’m not so sure about that considering everything that’s been going on around here. You thought you heard or felt something last night on the porch.”

  “I think things like that all the time, but it doesn’t mean they’re real. Ask my shrink.”

  Maybe he was grasping at straws.

  By the time the fire department drove onto the property moments later, the shed had burned to the ground, leaving behind a charred and smoking mess. Some of the grass caught fire, but he and Jamie were able to stomp out the hot spots. The fire department sprayed down the rest.

  He gave his account to the guy in charge. The fire department and cops took down everything he said. He didn’t add his suspicions, only telling exactly what had happened as the events unfolded. His story raised a few eyebrows, even from Jamie, and opened an arson investigation. The cops promised to investigate the other odd happenings on the ranch.

  Ford couldn’t prove anything. He didn’t know who’d mess with him, but he’d find out, and whoever it was would be sorry they’d put that haunted look back in Jamie’s eyes and added one more nightmare in her mind.

  Chapter 20

  “You overcame your fear and saved Ford, Jamie,” Dr. Porter praised.

  Jamie tried not to dwell on the fire from a week ago, but like her other nightmares, it hit hard sometimes.

  “I almost lost him.” She didn’t want to think of a life without him. Ford’s near death experience had brought them closer together. He had a renewed sense of living life to the fullest, fixing the ranch, and making every moment count. He’d certainly made the quiet nights they shared into memorable moments this past week. He made love to her with a passion and need that told her how deeply he felt and how almost losing her made him want to hold on all the more.

  She felt the same way.

  “You’re smiling.”

  Jamie jumped at the sound of Dr. Porter’s voice and the trace of accusation in it.

  She shook herself out of thoughts of her in bed with Ford, his hands on her skin, his lips pressed to hers, his body moving over her, under her, against her until passion burst from them and they clung together in the magic they made each night.

  “You’re blushing and smiling even bigger now. I’m concerned.”

  Jamie didn’t hide her joy. She couldn’t. She reveled in it, because the darkness didn’t crowd in and turn her mind black with negativity and doubt. She had hope. She had drea
ms. She had love in her life again.

  “Why are you concerned about me smiling?”

  “Don’t take this the wrong way, but your recovery seems rather fast. From deep depression to all smiles in just a few weeks.”

  “Is that so bad?”

  “I’m concerned that such a swift change won’t last, that it’s not sustainable when you haven’t dealt with your past.”

  “Can’t you be happy that I’ve found something that brings me more joy than I’ve felt . . . ever? Now that I’m consistent with my meds, eating regularly, getting exercise, I’m actually leveling out. You said the meds take time to work. They’re working.”

  “How is your pain level?”

  “Hovers around a three to a five most days because of the physical labor I’m doing. I don’t mind the pain so much because I’m making progress.” To prove it, she raised her arm up to a forty-five degree angle from her body. Major progress. Soon, she’d be able to raise it all the way up to the side of her head.

  “Nice. How are the headaches?”

  “Gone. I haven’t had one in five or six days. Before that, they’d tapered off considerably.”

  “How are you doing with the extra men working at Ford’s place?”

  Ford finally hired help. Four guys to start. “The first couple days were hard, but it’s getting better.” She didn’t look over her shoulder a hundred times an hour now. Mostly because Ford kept the guys working away from her. Still, she hadn’t completely freaked out, so that was something. “I had one scary moment,” she admitted, using her time with Dr. Porter wisely now that she’d given herself over to the process and grudgingly admitted to herself that talking things out with him helped.

  “What happened?”

  “Nothing really. The guys were walking back toward the stables from fixing a fence line. They were carrying a bunch of tools and posts in their hands and the past and reality collided. I thought they were carrying rifles. I thought they were gunning for me. I shoved Ford into a stall and he spent the better part of five minutes convincing me we weren’t under attack. Totally embarrassing. I lost my shit.”

  “How did Ford handle it?”

  “Like he handles everything: with infinite patience and more love than I probably deserve.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  She touched her fingertips together and pressed the point of her hand into her chest. “I still feel this weight, this something pressing on me.” She sat back, trying not to let her emotions get away from her, but thinking things through. “I think it has to do with the recurring nightmare I can’t shake either.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “It’s after the explosion. I’m out of the truck. I’m crouched behind another vehicle. I’m looking around, seeing everything as it happens. It’s too much to take in all at once. I look up at the shooter, but I can’t see him. He’s just a black figure.”

  “The attack happened in the middle of the afternoon. Broad daylight.”

  “Yes. But in my dream it’s all grey, and the shooter is black as night, bullets spraying everywhere like bursts of fire.”

  “Vivid, yet obscured.”

  “Yes, exactly.”

  “You’re still too afraid to see it and face it.”

  “Why do I need to now? I feel better. I’ve found a new life. I want to focus on my future, not keep looking back.” Stuck in denial, she didn’t want to switch gears and feel the pain anymore.

  “And what is that future, Jamie? Working in the stables at your boyfriend’s place? Is that the life you want?”

  “I want a life with him. What I do doesn’t matter.”

  “It does matter. You’re working there now to be close to him. You’re using him and the job to block out the things you don’t want to deal with because he does make you happy. But that’s not going to change the fact that you have to deal with your past so you can move forward without the past haunting you. Without it eventually infecting your life. It will, Jamie. You know it will.”

  “Right now, I need the routine. I need Ford’s strong and steady presence. I need the way he makes me feel.”

  “What happens when that’s not enough to keep the past only in your nightmares and you start acting out again because you can’t deal with the nightmares, flashbacks, paranoia, and other effects of PTSD? The Army thinks you have intel they need.”

  She held up her hands. “What could I possibly know?”

  “They seem sure you know something. All they’ll tell me is that they expect some lab results soon.”

  “Great. I don’t know what they’re testing, but maybe they can give me some answers.”

  “Tobin called me again. He really wants to talk to you.”

  Jamie held up her hands and let them fall in frustration. “Everybody wants something from me.”

  Dr. Porter cocked his head to the side. “Do you include Ford in that?”

  “No. He pushes, nudges, he’s even provoked me a time or two, but it’s always to get me to take a step toward being healthy again. He wants my happiness more than anything else.”

  “Then you need to continue to work on you, so you are the best you can be for yourself and for him. If you aren’t, how can you be what he needs without harming yourself?”

  “Dr. Porter, what we have is really good. I mean it. He reads me so well, it’s easy for me to communicate with him exactly what I need, even when I’m unable to put it into words. He’s patient, because he knows we have a lifetime to get this right.”

  “Do you believe that?”

  “I want to.” Hope filled her voice.

  “Come on, Jamie, look at what you have accomplished and what you have in your life. Give yourself permission to believe in it. Acknowledge the love you feel for him, the love you feel from him, and validate what you share. You deny the past. You deny the present. You deny the possibility of a future. Stop living in denial and find acceptance and understanding. Own it. Say it out loud. Make it real.”

  “Yes, I love Ford. It fills me up, but there is still this blackness inside of me that I try to hide and ignore. Yes, okay, I need to deal with it, but I don’t want to. I want it to go away so I can be with him and be happy and have everything I lost and found again. I want us to live on his ranch and have babies without this thing living inside of me.

  “I want it to stop nagging at me. I want it to go away!” She sank into the couch, her chest rising and falling with every pant as she tried to catch her breath and slow her throbbing heart.

  “Breathe, Jamie.”

  “I can’t breathe when I’m suffocating. You say ‘remember’ and all I do is see myself on the ground staring up at the dark figure. I can’t catch my breath and all I want to do is scream at him.” She sucked in a ragged breath and let it out, yelling at the top of her lungs, “Stop!”

  “Keller!”

  The rat-a-tat-tat of gunfire sucked her into the past. The wretched smell of smoke and burned flesh. The incessant ping of bullets off metal. The screams of men being hit and falling, injured and dying, gasping for their last breaths. The eerie silence from those lying dead around her.

  The smoke billowed overhead, obscuring the bright blue sky. The feel of the gun in her hand, a familiar weight and sense of security. She stumbled up and raised the gun and pointed it at the dark man and squeezed the trigger.

  “Jamie!” Dr. Porter’s voice echoed through the too-bright room.

  Someone held her close in a tight hold she couldn’t break.

  “Firefly, come back to me. Come on, sweetheart. You’re okay. You’re safe. You’re here. I love you. Come back to me, Firefly.” Ford’s soft voice whispered against her ear.

  She shook free of the past and felt Ford’s hard body pressed against hers. Her arm ached. Ford held it pinned between his arm and side so tight she couldn’t move or slip it free. She relaxed her arm and hand. The gun slipped through her tingling fingers and clunked on the hardwood floor. Ford kicked it away and let loose on her arm. She
leaned away from him, checking him over, running her hands over his chest and arms to be sure she hadn’t shot him again.

  “Jamie, Ford, is everyone okay?” Dr. Porter yelled from her laptop on the table.

  “We’re fine. Jamie, honey, say something.”

  “Where did you come from? When did you get here?”

  “Just now. What’s going on?”

  Zoey danced around their feet barking and yapping.

  “Uh, I don’t know. I was . . .” She shook her head to clear the cobwebs from her muddled mind. “I don’t know.”

  “Sit her back on the couch,” Dr. Porter ordered.

  Ford held her to his side and guided her to the sofa. She sat and raked her fingers through her hair, trying to breathe and find her sanity again. Her head swam with images that overlapped and made little sense.

  Ford set the gun on the table next to her laptop.

  She looked all around, the window, the door, and walls, but found no new bullet holes.

  “I emptied the gun, remember, sweetheart?”

  She buried her face in her hands. “Oh God, I could have shot you again.”

  “Again?” Dr. Porter asked, leaning forward toward his laptop, his arms braced on his desk.

  “What the hell is going on here?” Ford demanded, sidelining any talk about her shooting him. “I walk in and she’s in some sort of state. She doesn’t hear you yelling her name or me talking to her. What did you do?” Ford yelled at Dr. Porter.

  “We were talking about the attack and her nightmares.”

  “Let me guess, you pushed her to remember until she lost it.”

  “I . . .”

  “Fuck. She was doing so well, and you’ve got to take all that progress and flush it down the toilet.”

  “She needs to face the past.”

  “Yes. In her way. You have to let her do it in her time. You push and push and she fights it. Give her a nudge and time to let it come to her, time for her to slow things down to her pace, and she’ll remember more and incorporate it in her mind without it hurting so much. Without it sending her into a tailspin and looking for her goddamn gun!”

  “Ford, you’re upset.” Dr. Porter’s voice held a calm that didn’t show in his eyes.