Harlequin E Contemporary Romance Box Set Volume 3: Falling from the SkyMaid to LoveWhen the Lights Go DownStart Me Up

by Sarina Bowen

  “Kayla is even now asking Ms. Wells if she would keep an eye on Sergeant Buck while we are gone, and Tori is asking her to drop in on Caleb to see if he needs anything. Perhaps by the time we return, she’ll be a little more inclined to talk to you,” Rusty said.

  Ian could only hope. Maybe by the time they got back from Florida his life would be on an upward swing, because right now it was scraping the bottom of the barrel. Perhaps a change of scenery would do him good. It would be the first trip he’d taken since being stateside. After getting out of the service he’d checked in on his mother, who assured him she didn’t need a babysitter and wasn’t interested in him staying with her since she was done raising him. He had then followed Rusty, Ronnie and Seth here to Beavercreek, Ohio, and hadn’t gone anywhere else since.

  At the very least this would provide him with a break so he could figure out where he wanted to go with his life. He wouldn’t be able to fight forever. He really did like the idea of working with babies or little kids, helping them feel better. Kids did like him, especially rough-and-tumble little boys like Zach. If he could help them feel better when they were sick that would be pretty cool.

  He didn’t have it in him to be a doctor, but he was leaning heavily toward going into pediatric nursing. The guys might not think it was a very manly career choice, but just like the shit Seth took over dancing and his interior-design skills, Ian would take the jokes, too. It would make Mr. Yazzi proud, wherever he was now, and give Ian’s life purpose outside of his relationship with Courtney. Then maybe he wouldn’t be so needy.

  Chapter Twelve

  She wanted to call him. She did. It was just that witnessing a side of Ian she thought didn’t exist was not only scary but had made him seem more human…more real. Somewhere along the line she had come up with the idea that he was next to perfect—a far cry more together than she would ever hope to be. He’d allowed his emotions to get the better of him like any other person…any other man. It was hard to say for sure how she felt about that, but one thing was true, she didn’t like to see him falling apart.

  Ian had gone after the other fighter with a vengeance that had shaken Courtney to her core. It hurt to know that he was going through something and she didn’t know for sure what it was. She could guess, and thought she would probably be right, that it had to do with her. The surprising thing was that she hadn’t been afraid of him at all. She’d wanted to calm him, to be the one to reassure him for once. For the first time, she realized he very rarely shared the bad parts of his life with her. He treated her with kid gloves because of her issues. It wasn’t fair to him or her.

  This was one of those things that would have to change and only she could make that happen. She would make that happen. There was strength in her that she was just now seeing, but she was also coming to realize that strength had been there all along. She wanted to be there for Ian as much as he had been there for her, and she wanted him to be able to share things with her—good, bad or even angry things.

  Having decided that she was ready to make some changes in her life, starting with sharing her thoughts and feelings, even the bad ones, with others, she was stunned to realize that because she never shared those types of things with other people, no one shared things like that with her either…unless they were a paying patient. It bothered her more than she cared to admit that despite all her knowledge on the subject of psychology this fact had completely passed her by…because she had treated the concepts as if they didn’t apply to her, when, in fact, they did.

  She and Ian had a ways to go to patch up their relationship, but first she had to decide for herself if fixing things with Ian was the right thing to do. She should consider the idea that perhaps they weren’t meant to be together. Somehow during the time she’d known him, he had been a part of some of the best and worst times of her life. That kind of bond was hard to give up. She would give him up, though, if it was best for both of them. Was it?

  She was surely making Ian as crazy as he sometimes made her. His fight on Friday night had been proof. When Kayla called yesterday to ask if Courtney would be willing to watch Sergeant Buck while Kayla and Ronnie went on vacation down south with Rusty, Courtney had immediately asked why Ian wasn’t able to watch the dog. Finding out that he was going as well bothered her. That he could just leave and go on vacation as though everything wasn’t wrong between them…hurt. She should be glad that Ian could function without her, but instead it made her miss him and want him even more.

  Then later that same day, Tori had called asking if Courtney would stop by their house a couple of times during the week and check on Tori’s brother-in-law, Caleb, since she and Seth would be on the trip, too. Courtney felt left out, but she only had herself to thank for that. She hadn’t opened herself up to any real friendships with either Kayla or Tori. Courtney was always so standoffish. The only reason she and Jess were friends was because Jess was hard to ignore and blessedly tolerant of people like Courtney, who were different and chock full of issues.

  Some small part of Courtney wondered if this vacation was Ian’s way of getting over her, putting what they’d had behind him and moving on. It sure felt that way, and the feeling was tearing her apart. So here she sat, waiting on Kayla to drop off the dog before they all hit the road. They were taking two vehicles down to Florida to visit a friend of Rusty’s, and everyone was taking turns behind the wheel in hopes of driving straight through. Then Ronnie, Kayla and Addie would be heading back north to Georgia to visit family. Hearing the doorbell ring, Courtney pushed her thoughts aside and went to the door.

  Checking the security monitor, she was surprised to find Rusty Hawkins standing on her doorstep instead of Kayla, holding a bag of dog food in one arm and Sergeant Buck’s leash in his opposite hand. Opening the door, Courtney stepped aside and allowed them both to come in. Rusty sat the bag of dog food down and then handed her Buck’s leash.

  “I’ll go get his pillow. Be right back.” Without another word Rusty went back out the door, closing it softly behind him.

  Buck whined and she looked down at him. He stared at the door as though he already missed Rusty. A few minutes later, Rusty came back with a large pillow and a couple of dog bowls. Releasing Buck’s leash, she carried the pillow into the living room and placed it beside the fireplace. She put the dog bowls in the kitchen after filling one with water and the other with some food from the bag. As soon as everything was settled, Buck stood right next to Rusty and began to whine.

  “I don’t know what his problem is, but he’ll settle down in a few minutes,” Rusty said. “Kayla is running behind and asked me to drop him off for her, I hope you don’t mind.”

  “No. That’s fine. Why don’t you have a seat? It might help with his anxiety for him to see you relax around me. Would you like something to drink? Coffee, maybe?” she asked with a knowing smile. Ian had jokingly told her about Rusty’s coffee fetish, as he called it.

  “Sure,” Rusty replied.

  She headed into the kitchen to start a pot of coffee brewing. She smiled upon realizing that Rusty was more nervous than she was for some reason. Whether it was the idea of leaving Buck with her or that she was a therapist, she wasn’t sure, but he was obviously anxious. She heard him clear his throat a few times. Before Ian came into her life, she would have been a nervous wreck over a man sitting on her sofa in the other room, but much like Ian, Rusty wasn’t a threat, either—at least not to her.

  “So I heard that Kayla and Ronnie are going to Georgia after they visit your friend in Florida,” she said, trying to strike up conversation and put him at ease.

  “Yeah, to visit his family. Seth and Tori are hitting up Disney World since Caleb gave his entire paycheck to Zach and told him to kiss Snow White for him,” Rusty said with a laugh.

  “So you and Ian will be on your own then, huh?” she asked and then immediately cringed at the desperation to know about Ian, which she could hear in her own voice.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll take good care of
him,” Rusty replied. “For what it’s worth, the man he fought on Friday is going to be just fine. We went down yesterday morning and Ian talked things over with him. They’re thick as thieves now. It probably looked a whole lot worse than it really was.”

  Deciding that honesty was the best policy, at least if she planned to really turn over a new leaf and share parts of herself with other people, she said, “It was pretty bad. I’ve never seen him like that before.”

  “To tell you the truth, I’ve never seen him like that before, either, even when dealing with his worthless mother. I do know that he feels pretty bad about it, though,” Rusty said. “He’s taking a little break from fighting for now. He’s looking into getting a tutor to help him with his schoolwork. I’m hoping if someone can help him get through the basic classes he’ll get to the stuff he’s actually interested in and stick with it. Maybe then he’ll put this whole fighting thing behind him for good.”

  “You don’t like him fighting?” she asked, coming back into the living room and handing him a steaming cup of coffee.

  “It’s not that I don’t like him fighting. I just don’t want him to think that it’s the only thing he can do. He’s been doing it so long I fear he’ll settle for that just because it’s what he knows and something he’s good at,” Rusty said, taking a sip.

  “How long has he been fighting?”

  “He actually started in grade school. Betting and fighting older kids in the neighborhood where he grew up in order to pay the rent and feed himself when his mother went on one of her binges. By the time he made it to high school, he’d finally started getting all that approval he failed to get from his mother from Mr. Yazzi,” Rusty said.

  “I’ve not met his mother or heard him talk about his family much, other than Mr. Yazzi,” she prompted.

  “Not much to tell, really. His mother is an alcoholic and an all-around mean-spirited woman who wasn’t really sober much when Ian was growing up. When she was around, he normally wished she wasn’t. She’s never told Ian who his father is, and I think he figures she doesn’t really know. Being hateful about it is her way of not having to face her bad choices,” Rusty supplied, taking another big swig of coffee.

  “That’s terrible. Now I’m really thankful he had Mr. Yazzi,” she said on a sigh as Sergeant Buck finally came over to nudge her for a pat.

  “Ian told you about him, huh?” Rusty said with a smile. When she nodded, Rusty continued, “I think Ian believes he’s letting that old man down somehow every time he loses a fight or doesn’t do well on a test…or messes things up in his personal life. So you can imagine, he’s pretty down on himself at the moment.”

  “I guess he probably is. We all make mistakes, though,” she said, recalling her perceptions of Aunt Corrine and the years Courtney had spent feeling bad about something she had no control over. To know that Ian also had those types of internal struggles made her feel a connection to him she hadn’t felt before.

  “Some of us make bigger mistakes than others…” Rusty said, staring down into his mug.

  “Yes, that’s true. Sometimes, though, our mistakes seem bigger to us than they do to those around us. Only when we open up and talk about them do we figure out that we can heal from even the most catastrophic situations and experiences,” she replied.

  Rusty appeared to be lost in his own thoughts. She contemplated, from a professional standpoint, all four of the men she knew and what they had been through while serving in the military. Ian had said that Ronnie was the one who had taken action during the incident with the IED and, because of that, much like Aunt Corrine, the man had been able to put the whole thing behind him. She wasn’t sure of Seth’s role in what happened, but she did know that Ian felt responsible for it. What were Rusty’s thoughts on the incident? Was that the big mistake he was referring to?

  This was one of those opportunities to share her own life experiences and hope it prompted someone else to share their own emotions and thoughts. She could do this. Even with Rusty. Who, of all the men, was somehow the most intimidating.

  “I learned that lesson just this past week,” she started. “My aunt was attacked in front of me when I was young. I spent a lifetime feeling just awful that I didn’t do enough to protect her only to finally really talk to her about it and actually listen to her interpretation of the whole situation. She doesn’t blame me, even though I blamed myself all these years. Now I’m learning to let go of those things that I cannot do anything about and leave them in the past where they belong. Oddly enough, now that I’m finally working through all those emotions, I found out that I will have to face the monsters that brutalized her in court. It’s been a lot to swallow all at once, and I took it out on Ian.”

  “If you were just a child there is nothing you could have done that wouldn’t have resulted in you either being attacked as well or badly hurt. There is a time to help and a time to lay low. Even though you were forced to lay low back then, it sounds like it’s your time now to make a stand. As long as you don’t pass up your chance to help, as long as you don’t stand on the sidelines and let others do your share, then you will have done all you could to help,” Rusty said. Buck whined and walked over to Rusty and bumped his hand for attention.

  The man had summed up what had taken her more than two decades to figure out. He had worded it rather nicely, too, and hearing it put so eloquently made it even harder to deal with. It might sound really simple, but living with it hadn’t been easy. The odd part was that after having said those things, he would no longer meet her gaze. Instead he wore an expression of guilt that she had never seen on another person—aside from the one she saw in the mirror.

  “I’m going to do all I can to make sure those men never hurt another person. I’ll admit it, though, I’m afraid. I’m scared that when it counts I’ll fail to help all over again,” she choked out.

  Rusty’s whole demeanor changed. Gone was the relaxed man sitting on her couch enjoying a cup of coffee. Buck quickly headed back over to his pillow and lay down with a whimper and a heavy sigh. Glancing back at Rusty, she watched as he stood up silently, still refusing to meet her gaze. He was obviously struggling with an emotional reaction to what she’d said and appeared to be failing miserably.

  Handing her the coffee mug, he finally said, “I need to go. They’re probably ready to leave by now, and I’m holding up the process. Thanks for the coffee.”

  After taking the mug, she watched him step around her. In several long strides, he made it out the front door before she even managed to take one step. Rusty Hawkins was another person in her life she could relate to, especially after sharing some of herself with him. She recognized a lot of herself in the man. He also had issues he wasn’t dealing with. Unlike her, though, he appeared not to want to work through them.

  After putting the empty mug in the sink she headed back to the living room only to find Sergeant Buck standing by the front door. Again he was whining and seemed generally agitated or…worried. Perhaps he needed go outside. Finding his leash, she coaxed him out to the fenced backyard to do his business. After several minutes of the dog simply sniffing anything and everything, they headed back inside.

  Sleep was fleeting at best between thoughts of Ian and the whimpering of the overgrown dog, who insisted on sleeping on the floor at the end of her bed. God, she missed Ian horribly. Worse was the knowledge that she’d learned more about Ian’s past from one of his best friends than from him. Sure, he’d shared a painful experience from his time in the military, but it wasn’t enough. He needed to be able to share himself completely with another person…and she wanted that person to be her.

  Buck whimpered, yawned and scuffled around, waking her yet again. Sitting up, she realized it was only a little after four in the morning, but she wanted to hear Ian’s voice so much. How would she make it until daylight, especially if the large dog continued to wake her up every hour or so? Buck, having sensed she was truly awake this time, made his way over to the side of her bed and snif
fed her arm, the nightstand and then the contents on top of it. Reaching over, she switched on the lamp next to her bed only to notice the dog had been sniffing her cell phone.

  Picking up the phone, she flipped it over. The display showed a text message from Ian. Her heart pounded as she punched in her password and pulled up the text.

  I miss you, beautiful.

  The message had been sent only a few minutes before Buck woke her up. She couldn’t help but look at the dog, who, if she didn’t know better, seemed to feel his work was done. He headed right back to the foot of the bed and lay down with a sigh. Why, oh why, did Ian have to go on vacation before throwing her a bone to let her know she hadn’t completely blown things with him?

  Somehow responding by text message wasn’t enough. What she had to say needed to be said out loud. So she responded by asking that he call her when he had time. Knowing she would not be able to sleep anymore after finding out that she still held a place in his life, she got up and headed downstairs.

  She finished taking Buck outside and just as she made some warm tea and toast her cell phone rang. Looking at the display, she was thrilled at seeing Ian’s name.

  “What are you doing awake so early?” she asked upon answering the call.

  “I am missing the hell out of you. God, beautiful. It’s so good to hear you talking to me again,” he said quietly.

  Her heart skipped a beat at his confession. Yes, it felt good but it hurt at the same time. There was so much she wanted to say. It was time to do some confessing of her own. She needed to look into his eyes when she did so she could see their color, see how her words affected him. Doing so by phone wouldn’t allow for that.