Cowboy to the Rescue

by Trish Milburn

  She was halfway down the row, giving her a glimpse of his naked chest beneath, when he stopped her with another kiss. This one, however, burned with more fire and she found herself being guided slowly toward the bed. As he laid her back onto the cool sheets, she managed to thoroughly enjoy the kiss while also finishing with the buttons. She spread the shirt wide and placed her palms against his smooth chest.

  Ryan’s sudden intake of air made her smile against his lips.

  “Flirt.” His voice was raspy and deep, laced with a promise she really wanted him to keep.

  Feeling bold, she nipped at his bottom lip. He growled and slid his hands up her arms to clasp her hands above her head. The succession of kisses that followed left her feeling like a bowl of noodles.

  “I think I’ve discovered another of your talents,” she said as he kissed her neck.

  “There’s more,” he said next to her ear, making her shiver in a very, very good way.

  “Promises, promises,” she teased, hardly recognizing herself.

  “Promises I intend to keep.”

  He drugged her with endless kisses to her lips, her ears, her neck as he unzipped her dress and carefully pulled it over her head. And then he set those magnificent lips to work on the swell of her breasts above her bra. She gasped and arched into him. The top edge of her bra edged down, granting him access to more sensitive skin.

  She wanted to tell him to just take it off, but she couldn’t form words. But she didn’t have to. He seemed to read her mind, slipping his hands beneath her to unsnap her bra. With a wicked grin, he pulled it off and tossed it on top of the discarded dress.

  With hungry fingers, she shoved his open shirt off his shoulders. When it joined the party of discarded clothing, she couldn’t get enough of running her hands over his warm, taut flesh. The muscles in his back made her mouth water, and she lifted slightly to kiss his chest. Getting hotter with each passing moment, she let inhibition float away and licked his right nipple.

  His body went rigid above her, followed quickly by a growl and then a demanding kiss. Ryan was no doubt strong, but his strength and power in this situation only served to fan the flames growing inside her. She met his deep kiss, pouring all of herself into it. The urgency built between them like a living thing, and their grasping hands made short work of the final barriers between them—his pants and underwear and her panties.

  She suffered a moment of panic, but it was quickly replaced with screaming desire as Ryan grasped her hips and rained kisses from her neck to her stomach.

  He lifted himself so he could look down at her then cradled her face in his hand. “I never expected this.”

  “Me, neither,” she said, trying to catch her breath.

  “But I like it.”

  She smiled. “Me, too.”

  “Will you let me make love to you?”

  “Ryan, the way I’m feeling right now, I might beg you to.”

  With another growl that made her entire body vibrate, he captured her mouth in another deep kiss as he gently spread her legs. The tip of him pressed against her, and she was done with waiting. She lifted herself against him, and he pushed fully inside. He paused only for a moment, letting her body accommodate him, before he started to move.

  Her entire world became the sensation of him sliding in and out of her center, and her breathing came faster and faster, urging his pace to increase. She gripped his hips and met each of his thrusts. Faster, deeper, faster, deeper. Her breath caught as she felt the beginnings of release starting to build at that hidden place within her. She focused on that tightening of inner muscles, the slick feel of Ryan, the ragged, hungry sound of his breathing as he rocked against her. Oh, she was getting closer…and closer…and closer.

  With one final burst of energy propelling her upward, she took him as deep as she could and let go of a spasming release. He followed her lead and stiffened as he found his own.

  Spent, Ryan collapsed beside her but still had enough energy to pull her into his arms. She snuggled next to his chest and listened as his heartbeat gradually slowed from the thundering pace their lovemaking had set.

  “That was…” He continued to breathe in full gulps of air.

  “Wonderful.” She said it softly, but he heard her because he gently squeezed her closer and kissed the top of her head.

  After a few beats of silence, he said, “Yeah. Wonderful.” His words sounded slow, languid, sleepy. And she found she felt much the same.

  Her eyes drifted shut, more relaxed than she could ever remember feeling. Safer. She tried to resist sleep, afraid she’d wake to find this had all been a dream, a vivid, heart-pumping, beautiful dream. But the long day joined forces with the slow caresses Ryan ran up and down her back to drag her toward oblivion. She went under, smiling all the way.

  A DREAM. It was just a dream.

  Ryan couldn’t get enough air, no matter how hard he breathed. Sweat ran down his body in a thousand tributaries.

  “Ryan?”

  The voice, a female’s, startled him and he spun toward it. It seemed to take forever for the truth to coalesce in his brain. Brooke. In his bed. Where they’d made love.

  He wiped his hand over his face and tried to get the shaking under control.

  “Ryan, what’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.” He launched himself from the bed and strode into the bathroom, shutting the door behind him. He turned on the faucet and splashed his face with water, trying to wash away the remnants of the nightmare.

  Why did he have to dream about that day tonight of all nights? Why, damn it? He looked at his reflection and pushed down the need to punch the mirror. All that would accomplish would be messing up his one good hand just as the other one had almost healed.

  He should go out and comfort Brooke, or maybe he should just ignore her and let her leave. Maybe now she and everyone else would see he was no good for anyone’s future if he couldn’t let go of the past, if he couldn’t change it.

  She knocked on the door. “Ryan, can I come in?”

  He slammed a lid down on his self-pity party and opened the door. She stood there wrapped in a sheet, the moonlight shining in the window behind her making her look like an angel.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “For what?”

  For dragging her into his life.

  You didn’t drag her, you fool. She walked into it willingly.

  “For having a nightmare?” she asked.

  He rubbed the back of his neck, wishing the right words would come to him. The way she was examining him made him squirm.

  “I’ve been told I’m a pretty good listener,” she said. “If you want to talk about it.”

  She could tell more was going on, and he didn’t know how he felt about that. Part of him was touched that she could know him so well in so short a time. Part felt raw and exposed, the exact things he’d guarded against since coming home. Suddenly exhausted to the point he thought he might collapse, he walked past her and sank onto the side of the bed. Brooke didn’t let the space between them stand and came to sit beside him.

  “Like you told me, you don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to. But I will listen, however long it takes.”

  He turned his head and looked her in the eyes, their color masked in the dimness of the room. But he could see them as clearly as if they stood in the middle of a sunny meadow. “It’s ugly.” Was he really considering telling her?

  “Everyone’s seen some type of ugly before.”

  “Not like this.”

  She touched his leg, skimming her palm over the scar that ran from the middle of his thigh to the base of his knee. Or what had once been his knee.

  “Does it have anything to do with this?”

  He stared at he
r hand caressing the constant reminder of what he’d done and almost pushed it away. He didn’t want her tainted by what it represented. But he wasn’t strong enough to relinquish the comfort that simple touch gave him. Whether he deserved it or not, he drank it in like a man dying of thirst.

  He took a deep, painful breath and began to speak. “I was stationed in an Iraqi village about thirty miles outside Baghdad. It was a hotbed of insurgency, so we were always on the lookout for suspicious activity. One day, while we were patrolling the edge of a marketplace, I noticed someone heading toward the busiest area who was wearing a little too much clothing for how hot it was. I knew in my gut it was a suicide bomber and I called out for the person to stop. I couldn’t even tell if it was a man or woman. Everything seemed to happen in slow motion and in the blink of an eye at the same time. I saw all those unsuspecting people in the same moment the bomber went for the detonator.” His stomach churned at the vividness of the memory. The heat baking his head beneath his helmet. The sweat trickling down his back beneath his uniform. The sounds of Arabic being spoken, words he didn’t understand. “I didn’t hesitate. I shot her in the head, and the bomb didn’t go off.”

  “Then it was a woman.”

  He swallowed hard, and it felt as if his throat was lined with knives. When he looked up at Brooke, he didn’t know what he was looking for. Understanding? Absolution? Condemnation?

  “It was a teenage girl. A fourteen-year-old girl.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Brooke couldn’t hide her shock, and she saw how it affected Ryan by how some sliver of hope died inside him. No, she would not be responsible for that. She grasped his hand before he could pull away.

  “You didn’t know.”

  “But she’s just as dead.”

  “And a lot of other innocent people aren’t because of what you did.”

  He laughed once, but it held not the tiniest drop of humor. “That’s what everyone else says.” He cursed. “They even gave me a damn medal. Said I’d saved not only Iraqi citizens but also American soldiers. As soon as I could walk again, I flushed it down the toilet.”

  “How were you hurt?”

  He hesitated, as if he was mired in the horrible memory that had obviously chased him even in sleep. “After I shot the girl, saw her face staring up wide-eyed at the sky, people with guns came out of the woodwork. I was still in shock when the bullets and grenades started flying. It’s a miracle none of them hit the bomb and set it off. But in the confusion, I got too close to one of the grenades. Damn near blew my leg off. They had to put a rod in my thigh and totally rebuilt my knee, mostly with mechanical parts.”

  “They must have done a good job because I’ve never noticed you limp.”

  “I’ve perfected the art of hiding it so I don’t have to answer questions I’d rather avoid. Part of me wishes I could forget everything, but another part thinks I should have to live with the memory every day.” He hung his head, shook it slowly back and forth. “She was just a kid.”

  She squeezed his hand harder, making sure he was paying attention. “And it’s not your fault that someone filled her head with hate. As awful as it seems to say, you did the right thing. Think of all the mothers, fathers, husbands, wives, sons and daughters you saved.”

  “My brain knows that.”

  “But your heart still grieves the senseless loss.”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  She cupped his jaw and forced him to look at her. “Listen to me. You are a good man. The simple fact that you torture yourself about that girl proves that to me. A lesser man wouldn’t have cared, would have seen her as the enemy or just a casualty of war.”

  He stared at her so hard that she felt he was searching for her innermost soul.

  “You make me want to believe that,” he said.

  “Good. Because it’s true.”

  “How can you know that?”

  “Call it gut instinct.” And she was positive—had never been more positive about anything. But where had that gut instinct been when she’d met Chris? Had it taken going through the horrible months with him for it to be born?

  “All those weeks I lay in that hospital bed, all I wanted to do was die.” He shook his head. “I knew it didn’t make sense. She’d been trying to kill people, her own people. But I couldn’t get the look on her face out of my mind. It was shock. I could never figure out if it was shock that she’d failed or that she’d been talked into being a bomber in the first place.”

  “If you’d known she was a girl, would you have done anything differently?”

  His mouth opened partially, but nothing came out. His forehead scrunched as if no one had ever asked him that question.

  “She didn’t give you a choice.”

  After several beats of silence, he finally spoke. “You’re amazing.”

  “Because I tell the truth?” A pang of guilt squeezed her as she said those words because she wasn’t telling him the full truth about herself, was she? She could tell herself all day that it was to protect herself, to protect him and his family, but it still felt wrong. But what choice did she have? Chris had power, and he wasn’t afraid to use it.

  “Because you don’t treat me like I might break.”

  “Is that how everyone else treats you?”

  “I’m not saying I haven’t given them reason. The memories, they don’t just show up in nightmares. I never know when they might hit.”

  “You’ve suffered post-traumatic stress?” She knew too much about that herself. All the evidence she needed was her little freakout in the dark the other night.

  He nodded. “I’ve tried so hard to make it stop, so my family would stop worrying. Mom, especially. She thinks she hides it, but I can see it in her eyes sometimes.”

  “That’s what moms do, they worry. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been to war or fallen out of a tree and broken your wrist.”

  The edge of his mouth quirked a little. “You or your sister?”

  “Both of us, actually.”

  He lifted his hand and ran his thumb over her lips. “I think you just might be my angel.”

  He kissed her again, and this time what stirred within her felt suspiciously like more than desire.

  ONLY THE BAREST hint of a new day was filtering into Ryan’s bedroom when Brooke woke the next morning. It had been a long time since she’d felt so cherished in a man’s arms, so warm, so happy. In truth, she wasn’t sure she’d ever experienced such a feeling. There was no stopping the smile that spread across her face. Not wanting to wake Ryan, she eased to a position where she could watch him sleep.

  He looked so different from the night before, relaxed and at peace. She hoped the horrible dream that had haunted him for so long would leave him be.

  She smiled at his mussed hair, a result of more enthusiastic lovemaking after they’d talked. She’d wanted to give him good memories to replace the bad. And, to be honest, she’d wanted to feel him again, experience that incredible pleasure he gave her.

  As the light increased in the room, more of his features were visible, making it hard to resist running her fingers over them. But he deserved restful sleep not haunted by demons.

  Brooke let more minutes tick by than she should, but finally she had to move. Before she could go to work, she had to sneak back to the bunkhouse for a shower and clean clothes. As she slid her legs over the side of the bed, Ryan roused, wrapped his arms around her waist and kissed her neck.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” He said it in a playful, sexy voice, not in the overbearing way Chris had developed toward the end of their relationship.

  “I have to get ready for work.”

  “I have a shower. I could even help you.” He nipped at her ear, sparking the beginnings of desire within her.

/>   With her skin heating, she wriggled out of his grasp and stood, taking a sheet to wrap around her. “You are a bad influence.”

  “You’re the one who led me to bed. Not that it wasn’t an excellent idea.” He waggled his eyebrows and smiled.

  She pointed at him. “Ryan Teague, you are more like Simon than you’d ever admit.”

  “Are you saying I have a way with the ladies?” He scooted closer to the edge of the bed.

  “I’m saying you are an incredible flirt hidden in shy guy clothing.”

  “Last I checked, I wasn’t wearing clothing.”

  “See, that’s what I’m talking about.”

  He grabbed at her sheet, grasping it before she could move out of reach. “And I believe I know someone else who isn’t wearing anything beneath that sheet.”

  She squealed and laughed as he tugged her into his arms and swung her back onto the bed, covering her with that big, wonderful body of his. Though she could go on kissing him all day, she had to break away. She pressed her hands against his naked chest and almost lost her willpower.

  “Ryan, I have to get to work.”

  “Will you come back later?”

  His request touched her heart. “If you want me to.”

  He captured her mouth in a mind-melting kiss. “Does that answer your question?”

  Indeed, it did.

  BROOKE MANAGED TO slip past the main house without seeing anyone. Only when she closed the bunkhouse door behind her did she breathe easier. Only then did she allow herself a full smile and a squeal of excitement that made her feel like a teenager again. Was this the reason she’d been attracted to the ad for Vista Hills? Was fate offering up something wonderful because she’d already had her share of not so wonderful?

  Unfortunately, she had no time to simply sit and relive the previous night. She rushed through her shower, trying not to imagine Ryan under the flow of water with her. After pulling on clothes as she rushed for the door, she ran until she was in view of the main house then slowed to a normal pace.