His Cowboy Heart

by Jennifer Ryan

  Zoey woke from her nap on Jamie’s lap and licked his chin and Jamie’s face. She smiled and laughed at the pup, though it didn’t ring quite true.

  “There’s your smile.”

  She touched her hand to his cheek, the soft smile on her face brightening when she looked at him this time. “Stir the potatoes before they burn.”

  He kissed her softly and went back to tend to dinner.

  “I’m sorry, Jamie. If I’d known you were having this much trouble, I’d have come sooner. Come home with me to Georgia. Surround yourself with the people you know, the ones who understand what you’ve been through and can help you through this.”

  Jamie is home, asshole.

  “Believe me, I’ve had my own dark moments and had to lean on friends, or had someone shake some sense into me when I’ve gone off the rails.”

  “My brother, Zac, has a little boy. Corey. I want to get to know him, spend time with my brother, and hold on to what little family I have left. I’ve been gone so long, I hardly know Zac anymore.”

  Why didn’t she mention wanting to stay with him?

  “Spending time with him must help. Unless big, bad boyfriend keeps you all to himself.”

  “I saw Zac not that long ago. I even spoke briefly with my mother without losing it. Things have been going really well.” She briefly glanced at Ford, but still didn’t hold his gaze. “Ford keeps me sane. When I can’t keep the thoughts in my head from taking me to that dark place, he distracts me.”

  “I bet he does.” The suggestive tone implied all kinds of dirty ways Ford distracted Jamie.

  Sometimes, it was like that. Especially at night when she couldn’t fight off the nightmares. He pulled her out of them and gave her a real life fantasy. In those moments, he felt the closest to her because her guard went down and she made love to him with an openness and honesty that rocked him to the core.

  Before Ford leaned across the table and punched Tobin in his smart mouth, Jamie spoke up. “Grow up, Tobin, I’m serious,” Jamie snapped. “You got a glimpse of me falling away. Believe me, you got off lucky today coming here without letting me know and walking up to the door. It could have gone a whole lot worse than me being unfriendly.”

  “What are you going to do to me, little bit?”

  “Shoot you dead,” she shot back, deadpan, a little of that hair-trigger anger coming back into her voice.

  “Right.” Tobin shook his head with disbelief and took a long pull on his beer.

  Ford shut off the burner under the potatoes and walked over to the table determined to prove to Tobin that Jamie spoke the truth. He pulled up the sleeve of his black T-shirt and showed Tobin the long scar across the outside of his shoulder. “She nearly took my head off, too.”

  “Maybe you deserved it.” Tobin pointed to the burns dotting his forearms from the sparks from the fire. “And whatever left those marks.”

  The not so nice smile Tobin shot him made Ford wonder if Tobin knew exactly how he’d gotten the burn marks on his arms. Ford shook off his unwarranted suspicions. Someone had to be truly desperate to do something as deadly serious as setting a building on fire to kill someone. If Tobin wanted a piece of him, he could come and get it right now.

  To prove the severity of Jamie’s condition and give Tobin a warning he’d better heed, Ford reached behind Jamie and pulled the gun from her waistband. She gasped and tried to turn and take it back, but he held it out of her reach and set it on the table with his hand over it. “Maybe you deserve it.”

  “Holy fuck.” Tobin leaned forward, staring at Jamie. “Were you really going to shoot me?”

  Jamie turned her guilty gaze away and didn’t say anything.

  “It’s not you she wants to kill, but the guy who attacked your group.”

  Tobin fell back in his seat. Ford thought he saw fear in his eyes, but Tobin masked it quickly with yet another dark glare.

  “She sees the guy who killed your friends and shot her. She wants him dead. So when she gets scared, when she falls into a waking nightmare, she tries to kill him and doesn’t know what she’s doing, or who she’s shooting at. Lucky for you, the gun isn’t loaded.”

  Jamie wrapped her arms around her middle and hung her head with a heavy sigh.

  Ford glanced from her to the gun under his hand. He picked it up and pulled the clip free. The fucking fully loaded clip. “Jamie.” He bit out just her name, too pissed to say more without going off on her with a string of curse words.

  She’d lied about not having any more bullets hidden in the house. He’d let her keep the gun as a security blanket kind of thing.

  “I’m sorry,” she said to her lap. She raised her head and gave him a halfhearted, lopsided grin. “I didn’t shoot him. I didn’t even pull the gun on him. That’s something.”

  “You could have killed him,” he barked out, trying to drill into her the possible consequences. “Do you want to spend the rest of your life in jail?”

  “No.” She shook her head, her gaze falling away again. “I want to be with you.”

  “Do you?”

  “Yes.” Desperation punctuated the emphatic reply.

  He stuffed the clip in his pocket and racked the slide, popping the bullet in the chamber out, catching it midair. Furious she’d had a round chambered and ready to fire, he glared down at her, too pissed off to say anything at all.

  Tobin downed the last of his beer. Finally getting the severity of the situation, he said, “Damn, Keller, you don’t fuck around, do you?”

  “No, she doesn’t, so you’d do well to keep her rooted in the here and now and not push her on the attack and what happened.”

  “Let’s both forget the whole damn thing.” Tobin held up his beer in a salute to get her agreement, saw that it was empty, and turned to Ford. “I think I need another.” Tobin raked his fingers through his short hair, wiped the sweat from his brow, and let out another heavy sigh.

  Jamie jumped up to get one out of the fridge. Ford turned his back on both of them and flipped the steaks on the grill pan on the stove. Jamie came up behind him, placed her hands on his back, and ran them up to his shoulders, pressing her forehead into his spine. He dropped the fork he used to turn the steaks on the stove and turned to her, taking her in his arms and holding her close.

  Tobin watched from the table, his eyes narrowed.

  Ford tried to read the myriad of emotions in them, a jumbled mix of jealousy, anger, and resentment.

  Go fuck yourself, asshole. She’s mine.

  Ford wondered how long before Tobin undermined his relationship with Jamie. It had already started the minute Ford showed up. Before, really. Maybe all the way back to the days the two had spent working together, when Tobin wanted her but she’d still been Ford’s in her heart.

  No fucking way would Ford let Tobin come between him and Jamie. He’d given her up once. He wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. If Tobin tried to take her from him, he’d be in for one hell of a fight.

  Ford held her closer and kissed her on top of the head. “I love you, Firefly.”

  She hugged him tight, making his sides ache, but he didn’t care. He held her in his arms, letting her know he understood she was sorry for what she’d done. She didn’t want to fight with him. She didn’t want to put space between them.

  But something had her rattled tonight. Something more added a desperation to her embrace. He wished he knew why and understood the undercurrent running between her and Tobin.

  “Sit down, sweetheart. Let’s eat.”

  She looked up at him. He brushed his fingers through her soft, golden-red hair, gave her a smile to let her know they were okay, and leaned down and kissed her softly.

  She fed Zoey before returning to the table. The pup ate greedily at her bowl while Ford plated up dinner and set it on the table.

  “This looks great, man. Thanks.” Tobin dug into the potatoes.

  “You’re welcome.” Ford set Jamie’s pill bottles in front of her.

  She du
mped the ones she needed into her hand, popped them in her mouth, and washed them down with her beer.

  Tobin held up his bottle to her. “To old friends.”

  Jamie hesitated, her eyes filled with regret and sadness. She tipped her bottle and clinked the neck to Tobin’s beer. “Old friends.” She drank deeply, polishing off half the bottle.

  Disappointment settled in Ford’s chest when she didn’t turn to him to toast old friends. She was his first love. He was hers. They’d found their way back to each other, but right now, she made him feel like the odd man out.

  The food he ate soured in his stomach as the night wore on and Jamie and Tobin lost themselves in stories about the places they’d been, people they knew, their adventures, and games they’d played. Grateful for the change in sentiment to happier times and inside jokes, Ford grew quiet, laughing and smiling when appropriate, but ever aware of how Jamie slowly eased into the conversation, then participated with open enthusiasm. She warmed to Tobin’s presence with little resistance once the topic changed to things much easier for her to deal with, things she could remember without any trauma.

  The stories gave Ford great insight into the past few years of Jamie’s life.

  Tobin kept up a stream of topics and jokes, engaging Jamie nonstop and holding her attention.

  Never one to be jealous about any of the women he’d dated, he found that his protective streak for Jamie ran deep and true. Her paying absolute attention to Tobin, every laugh and smile she graced him with, all the inside jokes and anecdotes they shared, made that green-eyed monster stand up and roar inside of him until he didn’t think he could take it anymore.

  “I gotta take a leak.” Tobin stood and walked around the table, reaching out to Jamie. His hand clamped onto her shoulder. She didn’t even flinch. “I’m so glad I came. I missed you.”

  Jamie stared up at the man, a soft smile on her face. “I missed you, too.”

  Tobin leaned down and kissed her on the top of the head.

  Jamie shoved him toward the hallway. “Stop flirting with me.”

  “It’s my favorite thing to do.” Tobin took off down the hall, that smug smile back on his face.

  Ford held on to his temper and tamped down the urge to tackle Tobin to the floor and punch his lights out for kissing his girl. He only had a minute to talk to Jamie alone.

  She turned to him, the bright smile on her lips dying when her gaze collided with his and she read his simmering anger. “I’m sorry. We got caught up.”

  “I need to go home and check on the horses. They need to be fed.”

  “You always do that before you come here.”

  “Yeah, except when you text me in a panic to ‘come now.’”

  “No I didn’t.”

  Ford pulled his phone from his back pocket, swiped the screen, and showed her the text. Her face paled and went blank.

  “You don’t even remember. Do you remember loading the gun?”

  She shook her head, pressed her lips tight, her gaze darting away from him.

  He leaned forward, planted his elbows on his knees, and took her hand. “Come home with me—”

  Her head shook before he even finished the sentence. “I can’t leave Tobin here by himself.”

  “But you expect me to leave you alone here with him?”

  She placed her hand on his. “Yes. I do. I need to ask him about what happened. I need to know.”

  “Fine. Ask him, then I’ll take you home with me.”

  “He won’t open up with you here. He’ll brag and play up the story, trying to look strong and indestructible in front of you. It’s got to be just as hard for him to relive that time as it is for me. When it’s just him and me, he’ll drop his guard and talk. Please, Ford, do this for me.”

  “I don’t trust him.”

  “I need to know, Ford. He won’t tell me everything if you’re here.”

  “Talking about it will leave you sad and raw. I want to stay and help you through it.”

  She gripped his hand tight. “I’ll be okay. Besides, you already disarmed me. If things get bad, what can I do?”

  “This is a bad idea.”

  “It has to be done. I can’t go on like this anymore.”

  He stood to take his plate to the sink, taking a minute to think. Everything in him told him to take her home with him. Protect her. He couldn’t protect her from her own mind. No matter how content and happy she’d been lately, this remained a storm cloud waiting to thunder and rain down on her, to wash away her progress and hard-won confidence a little at a time.

  He closed the distance between them, braced his hand on the back of her chair, and leaned down close. “You’ll call me if you need me.”

  She reached up and touched his face. “I always need you.”

  He growled his frustration and undeniable need for her, then planted a searing kiss on her lips letting her know all the things he’d like to say: I love you. I don’t like this. I wish I could spare you any more pain and sadness. I want you in my bed. I need you more than I can say. Stay with me.

  The door opened down the hall. Out of time, Ford broke the kiss and stared down into Jamie’s eyes and saw the understanding in their depths. She knew this wasn’t easy for him.

  Though it bothered him to go against his instincts to protect her, he’d give her this chance to find out the truth so she could put it to rest once and for all.

  “I hate to leave you like this.”

  Tobin grabbed two beers from the fridge and set one in front of Jamie. “She’ll be fine. Won’t you, honey?”

  Ford gnashed his teeth and glared at Tobin. He glanced back at Jamie. “You took your meds,” he said under his breath, warning her about drinking on top of them.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll be fine.”

  He hoped so, but the growing ball of worry souring his gut said otherwise. “I’ll see you first thing in the morning. We have plans.”

  She cocked her head. “We do?”

  “Yeah.” He kissed her again, then walked out the door without saying goodbye to Tobin. Something about the guy rubbed Ford the wrong way. Something that went deeper than the fact the guy wanted to steal his girl. Tobin had an agenda. What he wanted, besides Jamie, Ford didn’t know, but he’d be damned before he let Tobin come between him and Jamie.

  Chapter 24

  Tobin hid the smile tugging at his lips. Finally, that asshole left him alone with Jamie. Without her watchdog, he hoped Jamie would finally relax and they could talk. Jamie wanted to believe she could move on with Ford. He wanted her to come back to Georgia with him. God, how he’d missed her these last few months. Being stateside, dealing with the aftermath of what happened overseas alone was driving him insane. He needed her. They needed each other to get through this.

  Jamie’s eyes filled with questions he had no intention of answering. She leaned toward him, took a fortifying drink of her beer, set it aside, then folded her arms on the table. “Tell me what happened after the explosion?”

  He didn’t want to go there and trigger her memory, or some fucked-up episode where she tried to kill him, so he distracted her. “Remember the time you and Catalina cut out a cardboard Christmas tree and made all those silly decorations with bottle caps and plastic utensils and shit?”

  A soft smile touched Jamie’s lips. “Yeah. I really enjoyed that Christmas. The ones here with my family weren’t that fun.”

  They’d had a good life on base. A family rooted in honor, duty, trust, and camaraderie. Better than where either of them had come from. They had that in common.

  He wanted to go back to that life, get back in the action, but he’d give it all up for her.

  “What are you doing here, Jamie? You belong in Georgia with the people who really care about you.” With me.

  She didn’t say anything, just sat back in her chair, legs out, eyes on the black window behind him, staring at the past he saw in her eyes and the lines etched on her forehead.

  He got up and grabbed the
bottle of whiskey off the counter. If he couldn’t distract her, he’d get her drunk until she passed out.

  He found two glasses and set them on the table as he fell into the seat Ford had vacated next to her.

  She turned her head and gave him a halfhearted smile. “I shouldn’t drink anymore.”

  “One toast. To our friends, the life, being part of something bigger than ourselves.”

  Jamie took her glass and held it up to him. He clinked his to hers and they downed the shots. He poured another for both of them.

  “I’m done.” Jamie didn’t just mean drinking. She was done with the military.

  Tobin didn’t want to believe her, but the ache in his heart told him he’d lost her in that part of his life. If he lost her completely, he didn’t know what he’d do.

  Jamie downed the other shot, found her courage, and asked again. “What happened?”

  “You really lost all that time?”

  She bobbed her head up and down like it weighed too much on her shoulders. “Except for disjointed fragments, everything after the truck exploded.”

  “It’s probably better that way.”

  “The longer I’m with Ford, the easier it is to remember. I don’t get lost in that dark place, because I know I’ve got him to bring me out of it.”

  Ford wasn’t helping her—he was making it damn impossible for Tobin to convince her to forget. That shit needed to stay buried.

  She’d never looked at him the way she looked at that damn cowboy. It stung. What the hell was it about the guy that drew her to him and made her blind to what was right in front of her? He could make her happy. They’d shared the last several years together. Still, she only wanted to be with the asshole who’d broke her heart once and would do it again.

  “I always see myself on the ground, shot, and staring up at the guy on the armored vehicle. Something about him nags at me.”

  Tobin poured her another shot. “Shut that shit down. Forget him. Remember our friends. Know that you wanted to help, but in your condition, you were in no shape to do anything.” He hated to keep saying that to her and seeing the deep regret in her eyes.